When God Ran

Last week, we began a journey into Jesus’ most famous story known commonly as the prodigal Son. It’s a story of two sons and a Father who loved them both. We began by looking at the context that Jesus told the story in, discovering that Jesus was directly responding to the accusation of religious people that he was a friend of the wrong people, people known as sinners, the rule-breakers. Jesus does not defend himself against the accusation. In fact he agrees with it! Not only is Jesus a friend of sinners, people supposedly lost to God are exactly the ones that are the focus of his life.

The story begins with the younger of two sons coming to his Father and asking for his share of the family estate. ""There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.'" Some cultural background at this point is really important. In Ancient Middle-Eastern culture it was customary for a patriarch’s estate to be divided on his death between his surviving sons. The oldest son was entitled to a double portion of what the other son’s received. So in a family of two sons the older brother would receive two-thirds of the estate and the younger brother one-third. The other rule, set in stone, is that the estate would only ever be divided when the Father died, and not before.

The opening shock of this story for Jesus’ audience would be this; effectively the younger son was saying to his father, “You are dead to me! I’m not waiting for you to draw your last breath, for your body to be buried deep. I want it all and I want it now!" This was a stunning, shame-filled slap in the face for the Father. His youngest son was by his actions saying to him I love what you can give me more that you. 

By his actions, the younger son was ripping apart his family. He was treating his Father as if he was dead and was walking away from his older brother. By forcing his Father into liquidating family assets, selling land and property, he was bringing down economic hardship. And all this would have been watched by the wider community, who would have been open-mouthed at the disrespect shown to the father. It was shameful. It was an incredible act of selfishness.

This week we are going to explore the motivation of the Prodigal's rebellion, the source of the turn-around in his life, and the grace that was shown to him by his father. Though each of us easily fall prey to the the Prodigal's real source of rebellion, the Good News is, our Father is always wanting to run to us to welcome us home!